Author of the Greystone Valley series and more

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Sports

The deal my wife and I have with our kids is simple: they have to pick some sort of extracurricular activity, be it sports, dance, or what have you. If they don’t like it, they can try something else. The deal with myself is also simple: I don’t want to be a stereotypical sports parent.

By “stereotypical sports parent,” I mean the most negative stereotype out there – they kind of person who screams at coaches and generally acts like a boor instead of enjoying the game. I’m not that competitive a person, so in theory that’s an easy promise to keep. Despite that, I almost lost it yesterday.

On the bright side, it didn’t have anything to do with me being overly competitive. Instead, it had to do with one kid being a bully on the ice. This guy has been a problem for months, as he seems to think that sports exist only to pummel kids smaller than him.

I seem to have fallen over backwards into helping as a coach with my son’s soccer team. As it turns out, you only have to express an interest (or maybe, as in my case, have a brother-in-law who is also coaching) to do this. It’s quite fun, but really weird when parents say, “Hi, Coach.”